Ad Tracker and Click Fraud blog » Click Fraud

Huge Legal Issues Surrounding Click Fraud

Michael Baker — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:00:31 +0000

Click fraud is a lot of things and one of which is a crime. That’s why it drives me up a wall when people try to take advantage of a good system and enrich themselves in a less than honest manner. Then again, they may think they are smart but they really are doing something foolish. They are risking a lot because the civil and criminal penalties possible. That is why I follow the straight and narrow and you should as well.

Problems surrounding click fraud have been proliferating since the very beginning of pay per click advertising. Unfortunately, not every person who engages in an entrepreneur is an honest person. That is why they may take liberties with clicking on ads not to learn more about the advertiser and his product. Rather, they are clicking on their own ads with the express purpose of enriching themselves through ill-gotten clicks. Never fall into this category if you are a PPC marketer! Often, when such a profiteer is discovered through PPC tracking programs, the person pay per click account will be dissolved. As a result, they will lose any potential payments. However, this could prove to be the least of their worries as it is also possible to fall into in legal hot water for click fraud if such fraudulent business practices involve a great deal of money.

When I sign on with a Pay Per Click company, I follow the rules. I would suggest everyone else do the same things. Remember, when you agree to the terms of agreement to a Pay Per Click company, you are signing a contractual agreement. Upon this agreement, you will be required to follow the established rules and conditions and avoid any barred behavior. If you do commit any fraudulent behavior, you have breached the contract and lose any claim on monetary rewards. Additionally, under certain circumstances, willful violation of the contract could also lead to criminal penalties as may be the case with blatant click fraud. And yes, ad tracking software can often expose such fraud and the results can be used as evidence against the perpetrator.

Here is something that I found quite surprising and it is certainly info that will make you realize the importance of staying on the straight and narrow:

In some jurisdictions such as the state of California, committing click fraud is a felony. That means anyone who is caught pilfering money through a click fraud venture could be prosecuted and sentenced to a prison term. The duration of the sentence will vary depending upon how much money was illegally procured. However, it is safe to say the more money a fraudster appropriates illegally, the longer the prison sentence will be. Usually, the ability to succeed in a large scale click fraud case will center on using computer scripts to automatically click on ads. When ad tracker based evidence of such a venture is entered into court, juries will doubtfully look positively on such a defendant. After all, the defendant has taken many clear steps to purposely commit an act of fraud to acquire undeserved payments. As such, it is doubtful leniency will be offered.

If you earn income through a PPC venture and it is later discovered fraud has occurred, it is possible for the PPC company to file a civil lawsuit to recoup the improper payments. However, it may be possible for the PPC company to seek punitive damages as well. This could lead to an enormous judgment against those who have committed serious volumes of monetary fraud.

Then, there is another aspect to click fraud legal issues that some may not be aware of. The advertiser can sue the PPC company to recoup the payments is made due to the result of third party click fraud. For example, in 2006, Google agreed to a lawsuit settlement of $90 million with a company called Lane’s Gifts and Collectibles. This occurred after the company proved it paid out millions of dollars to Google for ad clicks that were committed by fraudulent activity. Needless to say, companies such as Google will certainly pursue those who commit fraud aggressively because Google can find itself in legal hot water when fraud occurs.

I realize there are those who may be able to get away with committing click fraud for the short term. However, once they are discovered, the legal issues that can derive could be pretty severe. That’s why I stick with the straight and narrow and it is also why you should as well!

Related Articles:

Protecting Your PPC Campaigns Against Click Fraud

Michael Baker — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:00:15 +0000

One of the first things I discovered about PPC marketing was that not everyone who clicks on an ad will make a purchase. It was my mistake to think that all of my loyal visitors would make a click from my sight. After all, not everyone who visits a department store buys anything. And yes, there will also those that will click through who never had any interest in making a purchase. They just want to look at your website for informational purposes and you have to pay for these clicks regardless. I would get annoyed and irked over this type of activity but I learned not to take things so serious. The way to overcome the problem is to maximize your potential as far as converting customers.

This I can deal with, but what I cannot stand is someone is purposely committing click fraud. Luckily, I figures out the key to dealing with these folks.

Who are these characters?

There are the ones who purposely click on your PPC ads solely for the purpose of driving up your costs and reducing the number of ads you place on the internet. This also depletes the money in your account reducing the amount of time your ads are floating on the internet. Such problematic people need to be stopped from further eroding your business’ ad campaign. The way to do this is to review your campaign’s analytical data and look for suspicious details that would indicate such a problem is occurring.

How is this possible? It can be achieved through the use of tracking tools that can display information in a clear manner. A close overview of highly detailed and accurate statistical data will show when and where a click fraud problem is emerging. From this, it becomes possible to take the steps required to cease such fraud and abuse and protect your business. Once again, proper ad tracking tools can help deliver such help.

Here is something I figured out: People who commit malicious click are no different than any other type of person – they are creatures of habit. That means they will have a tendency to be very predictable in their behavior. Upon looking at an analyzer tool or PPC tracking program, you can pinpoint a number of their common traits in order to take proper steps to deal with them.

For example, the data on your click through statistic will notate the time of the clicks, the date, where the person was referred, and even URL and IP information. If the same IP has clicked on 10 ads on the same day this might be a clear indication of click fraud. If a pattern of this type of behavior starts becomes evident in your PPC tracking stats, then it may be likely you are dealing with malicious click fraud.

Logging such data becomes helpful when it comes time to report the information to the PPC host. Simply stating you believe you are a victim of click fraud may not be enough to receive a refund. You may need to prove your case. Presenting the host with detailed analytical data can definitely help sway opinions on your favor. This may allow you to receive a return credit for the money you were charged due to fraud.

But, the key here is that you must stay on top of all your statistical data and analytical reports. If you fall behind and do not notice the click fraud when it occurs, it can prove difficult to fix things after they are too far gone.

Follow this advice and you will learn what I learned: you can defeat those trying to commit click fraud. They can be outsmarted if you know how to deal with them.

Related Articles:

The Worst Threat Ever To PPC

Michael Baker — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:00:36 +0000

Click Fraud criminals are costing online advertisers thousands of dollars simply by clicking a mouse. It is such a seemingly feeble act, but Click Fraud seriously defeats online advertising efforts (and dollars).

The cyber world has become a major playing field in advertising. Research by the Interactive Advertising Bureau found 2008 Internet advertising revenues amounted to more than $23 billion in the U.S. alone. Online advertising has an expansive reach, topping 6.7 billion Internet users worldwide, according to InternetWorldStats.com. Online advertisements can now be narrowly targeted to ensure ad money isn’t wasted on Netizens who aren’t in the advertiser’s target market.

More bang for your buck – that’s the benefit of online marketing. Unless Click Fraud intrudes your online presence, taking your bang and your buck.

Click Fraud occurs when a person, application or script clicks an advertisement with the sole purpose of defeating the competition or wasting advertising efforts (see our What is Click Fraud? page for a more detailed definition of Click Fraud). The advantages of PPC advertising relinquish when Click Fraud skews marketing data and wastes advertising budgets.

The bad news: Click Fraud can seriously damage advertising campaigns.

The good news: Ad Tracking, PPC Tracking and Click Fraud monitoring can help protect advertisements from black hat Click Fraud perps.

Ad Trackers, PPC Tracking and Click Fraud prevention tools use Ad Tracking and PPC Tracking to detect and prevent suspicious and malicious clickers. Find out which Ad Trackers rate the best based on Ad Tracker Review’s thorough criteria.

Related Articles:

New pages on click fraud added

Michael Baker — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 01:04:56 +0000

With all the new industry information about click fraud we strive to keep the most up to date information. To improve awareness about click fraud and educate the public we have added several new pages. Each page plays an important roll in the overall flow of our website that will help to educate everyone.

Ever wonder how click fraud affects search engines directly? Find out how click fraud affects search engines

Click fraud affects everyone in the advertising industry in different ways find out exactly how click fraud is affecting other publishers, the advertising network and the advertisers. How click fraud affects different roles in the advertising industry. One of the most affected parties is the competition itself which will benefit them (which is why most click fraud is generated by your competition).

To understand click fraud completely you must understand the history of click fraud, modern click fraud and the future of click fraud. All three are important to understanding everything you will need to know about click fraud.

Possibly the most important thing to know about click fraud is to know how to prevent it from happening to you and how to get payout from the actual search engine if it has happened to you.

We hope all of the new pages will help you become more educated, you will be an industry expert after reading all of our pages about click fraud.

Related Articles:

New Update – Click Fraud Case Studies!

Michael Baker — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:57:16 +0000

Ad Tracker Reviews has conducted several case studies on different click fraud incidents. Click fraud is more rampant than ever each case study shows exactly what has happened. We have conducted heavy research on five different click fraud case studies and have provided the information below. Feel free to learn about what has happened in the recently and in the past all five are famous click fraud cases.

Clickbot.A.
Clickbot.A is a piece of software that could infect your computer and use your computer to create click fraud. Clickbot.A was targeted at Internet Explorer users and the impact of Clickbot.A was felt across the internet.

Auction Experts International
Auction Experts International setup a Google Adsense account and was not very subtle or clever with hiding what they were doing. They paid people to click on their ads over and over again the search engine found out about what was going on and prevented all future click fraud attempts.

Facebook
Facebook had a huge problem across the board and had several hundred upset advertisers. Fraudsters attacked Facebook and used a very simple method to create wealth using third world countries.

FFsearcher
FFSearcher is a Trojan which will lock into your computer and every time you do a Google search the affiliate is credited as if you were searching through the actual affiliate search. This piece of software was very harmful and has been very pricey for Google.

Google Clique
2004 was the year of Google Clique which was developed by Michael Anthony which could be used to help scammers defraud Google’s Adsense program by again automatically clicking on the ads. He actually tried to blackmail Google by contacting them directly and letting them know what he could do.

We hope that the case studies were helpful to you and will aid in helping you prevent click fraud. We will continue to provide up to date information to ensure that you will always be able to have the best information available.

Related Articles:

Tips for Preventing Click Fraud

Michael Baker — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:00:21 +0000

No matter which pay per click advertising platform you use there is a good chance that eventually you will be the victim of click fraud. No advertising campaign is immune to click fraud and unfortunately the more successful your advertising campaign is, the more likely it is to be targeted.

Each advertiser has a different system for tracking ads and handling click fraud once it happens, but the trick to a successful advertising campaign that does not bleed your wallet dry is to prevent click fraud before it occurs.

Focus on making sales, not getting clicks.

• Too many advertisers fall into the trap of trying to get clicks, not achieving their goal of making sales. Google and Yahoo want your ads to get as many clicks as possible because it means more money for them, but not necessarily for you if the clicks don’t become sales. You, however, should focus on making sales, not getting clicks, or else you are setting yourself up for click fraud.

• Minimize your chances of click fraud by carefully targeting your advertising campaigns to the locations, age groups, time of day, and keywords that match the demographics of your target market. When your ads are highly targeted the chances of click fraud decrease.

Choose Search Ads over Content Ads

• Pay per click ads placed on websites rather than in search results are more likely to be targeted for click fraud. There are elaborate click fraud networks designed to make money from fraudulent clicks on content ads because they only payout for the website owner when they are clicked.

• Pay per click ads placed in search results are not involved in these scams because they do not pay out when they are clicked. Google, Yahoo, and other pay per click advertising services give you the option to have your ads displayed in search results, on related websites, or both. Choosing search results only will decrease the likelihood of your ads being involved in a click fraud scam.

Related Articles:

Click fraud – still a big problem

Michael Baker — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:09:57 +0000

Click fraud is yet again a big problem; a recent report for the first quarter of 2009 stated that the average click fraud percentage was 13.8%. This was a decrease in comparison to the last quarter in 2008 which was reported to be 17.1%. Although it dropped significantly the problem is far from gone.

According to recent news Facebook a popular social network that recently started advertising and promised huge returns to investors has been charged with click fraud. There have been several reports from advertisers using quality ad trackers that have detected a 90% click fraud rate meaning that only 10% of clicks were valid. In some instances some advertisers have stated that Facebook click fraud has been as high as 100%! This has resulted in thousands and thousands of advertising dollars lost due to click fraud. Facebook has admitted that it is a major problem and is dedicated to finding a proper solution.

Google in the past has dismissed click fraud as a major issue and rejected several times that click fraud was as big as it was being reported. However, recently they have come to terms and acknowledged that click fraud is a huge problem. It is a very sensitive issue to Google because almost all of their revenue comes from online advertising and click fraud will only mean bad news to its reputation.

Microsoft is also actively engaged in fighting click fraud; they received several reports from their advertisers over suspicious click fraud activity (generated from 3^rd party ad tracker tools). After Microsoft received such information they investigated and discovered that it is a big deal and is suing three family members that boosted their traffic by hindering other advertisers. Microsoft is seeking $750,000 from the family due to fraudulent activity. Microsoft also credited over $1.5 million to their advertisers which were affected by the scheme (which would have never been credited if advertisers had not used a 3^rd party ad tracker). Microsoft stated that click fraud is likely to continue if it is left unchecked. It is clear from the Microsoft case that having a 3^rd party ad tracker that can track click fraud is priceless and moreover can save thousands from click fraud alone.

Click fraud continues to be a big issue that major search engines have been unable to eliminate. Fighting click fraud is making progress and will continue to do so because of 3^rd party ad tracker tools which are simply not provided by the big search engines. Search engines make a lot of money from click fraud, as Microsoft has stated “click fraud is likely to continue if it is left unchecked.” In other words online ads must be monitored and must be monitored by a 3^rd party ad tracker solution to be able to truly track and prevent click fraud.

The bottom line is that although the search engines are taking action click fraud is here to stay. Search engines are acting based on the reports that they have received from their advertisers. Advertisers receive their information from a 3^rd party ad tracker. Simply put, if advertisers were not using ad trackers no money would be awarded and search engines would not be participating as actively in fighting click fraud. It is through quality 3^rd party ad tracker tools that have and will continue to improve the quality of clicks received! Simply said preventing click fraud with a 3^rd party ad tracker is essential to online advertising.

Related Articles: